I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my DSL Internet connection for a week now. Last Thursday, July 1, it quit on me around 11:15, and I didn’t get back online until 9 pm. In the meantime, I had called SBC and they scheduled a technician to come out and check the line, but when he arrived Friday morning, the line was working, so he had nothing to check. Then, the line went down again around 11:30 Friday morning.
I called again, and they sent out a technician again Saturday morning, but the line had come back Friday evening, so all the guy could do is check signal levels (which were great) and then leave again. Wouldn’t you know it, the line died again that afternoon. This time, I was without service until Tuesday morning (the people doing line maintenace were off Monday for the July 4th holiday), when they connected my wires to another port.
Needless to say, this has all been very frustrating, especially as I make my living via my Internet connection. To make matters even worse, SBC has offshored their tech support, so every time you call them you get someone from the Phillipines on the line. These folks have been poorly trained and insist on going through some silly diagnostics each time you call them. This is especially frustrating as I’ve had this service for more than four years now. They’ve even wanted me to reload the software!
This morning, a week after I reported the trouble, the line is down again. It went down right in the middle of doing some work on a website. When I called the service center, I was told that there doing a “port check.” I asked why they didn’t call me first, and all I got was silence. So now it’s about an hour later, and it’s still down.
So, instead I got onto the “original Internet” — ham radio. I had a great QSO with Stu, W9JVC. At least ham radio still works.
Which really brings me to another point. What’s going to happen when the Internet really goes down? I really do think hams should be working on a radio-based packet network to allow us to communicate in times of emergency. Here in Michigan, the QMN Net started building such a network here in Michigan, but the project’s been stalled for some reason. It’s a shame as this could be really necessary some day.
Update 7/9/04: My DSL line came back up Thursday afternoon at 4:30, but that only lasted until 7:30, at which time a technician came out to troubleshoot the line. It never did come back up yesterday night, but the guy thought he found the problem. This morning, yet another technician came out to correct the wiring error. It’s now approximately 2 pm, and so far so good.
In describing this series of events to a friend this morning, it occurred to me that over the course of eight days, I probably spent more than 8 hours talking to more than 25 different SBC personnel about this problem. Amazing, isn’t it?
Brian says
That was my father! W9JVC. I now have his call…
Dan KB6NU says
I’m sorry to hear that your father has passed, but it’s certainly cool that you now have his call sign.
Howard says
Now, 15 years later, the technology has changed, but I’m sorry to say there are those of us who go through the same “on again, off again”, and it’s on when the tech shows up.